Strange Alien Life

Came across review of 3 books on alien life in New Scientist.

The gist is that alien life may well be stranger than anybody can imagine.  If that is the case, then it may be that the universe is full of "life" but that it takes on forms which make no sense to us, and thus it may prove difficult to communicate even to relatively intelligent aliens.  Just as a thought experiment, it may be that intelligent species are on planets but make use of totally different senses for communication.  It is known that insects (such as ants) communicate primarilly through chemical-means.   Even if aliens communicated via aural/auditory means, the frequency of speech would be different based on alien atmosphere makeup and pressure differences compared with Earth.  So just getting to the communicating-basic-ideas phase with aliens will be difficult.  And what makes for "basic ideas" may be up for interpretation.  Advanced intelligent aliens may presume that Fermat's Last Theorem to be part of their kindergarten math curriculum.   

Storing Data and Colonizing other Stars

Came across this from Tech Review.  Researchers came up with memory storage method that may last up to a million or more years. 
 
Related to that, if humans are to go to the stars, then methods like these would need to be developed in order to spread our civilization.  If for instance, a ship-probe could be sent to nearby stars to seed human settlers there, one would need a memory storage that would last the journey, which could last millenia at current capabilities.  Such data could be in the form of DNA sequences and the information needed for the probe to clone humans from those sequences.  The probe would also need all the knowledge of earth's civilization and technologies and a way to raise the first generation of these new settlers at which point, they could keep the colony going (hopefully). 

One issue I would wonder about is how cosmic radiation would affect the memory over long-term exposures affecting data stability.  Although the near-zero temperature of interstellar space would keep entropy low which would help counteract this for long periods of time. 

Giving Pledges for NewSpace Development?

On Buzzfeed via Drudge, I saw news about giving pledges most notably of which Bill Gates and  Warren Buffet are pushing billionaires to pledge to give up to half their wealth to charitable causes.   Dubbed the "Giving Pledge", the concept was made public in 2010.
But what if some of these billiionaires were to give some of this wealth to development and commercialization of space?
If the Forbes 10 gave maybe 5%, that would amount to ~$23B for space industry development, more than NASA's annual budget (FY2012= $17.8B).  Throw in the Forbes 100 or 1000, we're talking real money.
If concentrated on one or two concrete objectives, such money may make a difference in commercialization and colonization of cislunar and interplanetary space.  Dennis Tito's planned Inspiration Mars mission to perform a flyby of Mars is projected to cost $1-2B, well within the affordability of just 1 or 2 of the Forbes 10 to fund.
The fund needn't be only for charity either.  Such an initiative may well be organized as a consortium of investors/donors and other organizations.  Technology development and resulting IP and high-tech product spin-out companies can be owned by this fund which would then make returns to its investors.  Commercial projects and infrastructure in space would also be developed and owned by such consortium which would be paid for use of infrastructure by companies and governments wanting to do business in space.  

Edge of Tomorrow

Another movie that looks interesting.  Edge of Tomorrow slated to come out June 2014 starring Tom Cruise.  From looking at the plot, it would seem to be a Groundhog Day but with alien invasion and powered exo-skeletons.  It would be awesome if Bill Murray makes a cameo in this maybe as a grizzled old sarge, but I digress. 

Interstellar (the movie)

Just saw a teaser trailer come out for a movie Interstellar starring Matthew McConaughey and slated for release in November 2014.   It involves travel through wormholes but not too much yet is known about the plot. 

Link:  http://www.interstellar-movie.com/

War of the Worlds Radio Broadcast 75 Years Later

Seventy-five years ago today marks the anniversary of the Orson Welles' adapted performance of War of the Worlds and ensuing public panic of an alien invasion. Here a story with an embedded Radiolab podcast (also a link to an American Experience documentary about the broadcast). 

Dome Over the Valles Marineris?

 

 

In development of a Martian human presence, there will be immense challenges. It would seem a good way to obtain sizable gains in as short as time period as possible, it behoove the settlers to make a large as possible Earth-like space on the planet as possible. One possibility is to cap a portion of the Valles Marineris under a glass envelope.  As pressure of the habitat inside would be much more than normal Martian atmospheric conditions, the pressure differential would hold up the glass structure. The weight of the glass would also keep the pressure at human-habitable levels. In addition, as the whole structure would act as a greenhouse, the temperature inside the habitat would also be more Earth-like.  It also helps that the VM is roughly equitorial and thus gets lots of sunlight relative to other parts of Mars.  Water in the form of lakes inside the habitat would act as thermal mass and prevent wide temperature fluctuations during the day-night cycle. The glass could also have additives such as lead or other materials to protect against radiation, but having a lot of air above one's head helps a lot with that.  Essentially, the whole habitat would work much like Biosphere 2, but at a much larger scale and with all the ecologies worked out, which may be as or more challenging than building the dome itself.      

As an illustration, a 200km length segment of the VM would be capped with glass gathered from minerals in situ. An example width of the VM is also 200km. The depth of the segment could be around 5km. To calculate a rough-order glass thickness, I would compare the pressure of earth's atmosphere at 5km height. There is a difference based on gravity on the air column but that may be neglected for now. On Earth at 5km high, the air pressure is approximately half what it is at the surface or 50kPa. On Mars the average surface pressure is 0.6kPa so the gauge difference can be calculated as 49.4kPa. Using the density of silicon dioxide (2.6grams/cm³) as a representative density of the envelope, one may calculate the thickness required to counterbalance the gauge upward pressure. First I convert the gauge force into equivalent mass on Mars. 49.4kPa for a one square meter area amounts to 13.3kg/m² mass density of the glass given Martian gravity of 3.71m/sec². Dividing this mass density by the density of glass yields 5.1mm thickness required to keep the pressure within the habitat.  So not too bad as far as feasibility goes.  In future posts, I will explore the technical aspects of this concept.